Janet Meyer is the founder of Beacon Global Solutions LLC, a Chattanooga-based security consulting firm doing business as Bryson Security. Launched by a 20-year U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security Service veteran. She credits the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s Veterans Entrepreneurship Program (VEP) for helping her rebuild the business after losing a major contract in 2025.
Where it all started
Janet spent two decades as a supervisory special agent with the Diplomatic Security Service. She served as a regional security officer at U.S. embassies in Baghdad, Iraq; Dublin, Ireland; Khartoum, Sudan; Juba, South Sudan; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Tirana, Albania; and Canberra, Australia. Before joining the State Department, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M. After graduating, she served six years as a Marine Corps intelligence officer. Janet later earned master’s degrees from The Citadel and the National Defense University. She retired in November 2023 and returned to her roots in Chattanooga.
A new beginning
Even with that depth of security and leadership experience, she says starting her own company felt disorienting at first. “It’s like standing in a pitch-black room, feeling my way along the walls, looking for a door,” she said.
Doing business as Bryson Security founded Beacon Global Solutions LLC in November 2024. Her company offers risk and vulnerability assessments for corporations, nonprofits, schools and churches. She plans to expand into cybersecurity consulting and overseas security work with NGOs. The company’s early momentum came from a government contract training embassy and host-nation security partners abroad. In 2025 unexpected changes forced Janet to rebuild her client pipeline from the ground up.
She started looking for alternative solutions, which led her to UTC’s VEP, a Chattanooga-based training and mentorship program for veteran business owners.
Support for veteran entrepreneurs
Janet applied to the program and was accepted along with 17 other veteran entrepreneurs. She spent five weeks doing in-depth online curriculum, followed by an intensive eight-day in-person bootcamp at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Since then, the VEP has given her a business-plan framework, a year of LivePlan access, and hands-on exposure to resources she says are reshaping how she runs her company. Beyond the tools, she points to VEP’s emphasis on ownership: instructors telling participants from day one that this is their company, their brand, to run with as they see fit.
Janet also highlights the program’s community as a defining part of the experience. Veterans working through business ideas together late into the evening, instructors staying past their scheduled hours to keep answering questions, and structured networking exercises that introduced her to ideas and connections she hadn’t previously considered, despite being a Chattanooga native.
For other veterans weighing whether to apply to a program like VEP, Janet’s advice is simple: the practical skills like managing cash flow matter, but the local business network is the biggest asset. “You have the network of Chattanooga business right here at this program,” she says. “Take advantage of it.”
The VEP is offered for free through the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, providing veteran entrepreneurs with business training, mentorship and access to the Chattanooga business community as they launch and grow their companies.
Learn more about the Veterans Entrepreneurship Program at UTC.
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